


Remember Me Fondly

by Nobodyhasblindedme



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Petstuck (Homestuck), Dehumanization, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Physical Abuse, Physical Disability, it's petstuck yo, shit gets iffy on multiple levels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 08:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13586442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nobodyhasblindedme/pseuds/Nobodyhasblindedme
Summary: The mind is a fickle thing. What sticks isn't what always matters, and what matters won't always be there for a reminder of it's existence.--Tavros: Remember life up until this point





	Remember Me Fondly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laylah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/gifts), [Cephalopod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephalopod/gifts).



> I realize that the Petstuck series by Laylah and Cephalopod has been on a hiatus for a number of years now, but fuck if it still didn't capture my attention, and kindle my ability to write a whole lot, really quickly. The dark world painted over in a rainbow of trollish hues by these two authors was captivating and while I of course so dearly wish they'd continued working on the series, I'm still grateful to have gotten to read what is there. This is a thanks in ernest for the creativity of Petstuck and it's ability to make me cry and 'aww..' at the same time.

 

Humans are forgetful. 

 

It's the first rule you ever learned. 

 

The world spun at weird angles, and suddenly things weren't as nice as they'd been only a second ago when you were in a tight, warm, silky bundle suspended on the wall. You flail about, limbs (and the lack thereof in this particular case) smacking against other equally uncoordinated appendages and the bodies they're connected to.

 

You make a noise; they make a noise. You make another; they do too. But this time it's not the one you suddenly feel you want. Not even close... Should be deeper, bigger,  like the all-encompassing comfort you just left for the chillier, too-big space around you... 

 

You will learn much later - from a source that isn't even connected to another of your own kind - that they kept them away in locked kennels with electric heated dummy eggs so they wouldn't hear you and your clutchmates calling for them. 

 

It was hard to forget that. 

 

Something is moving about now, and it's...big. Too big. Scary, too fast, too many colors all mismatching and bright and calling in ways that grate against your ears - you have those now - and you _hate it_. The world is still fuzzy around the edges, and weird looking in ways you're not sure how to define yet, but the bodies, properly you-sized and warm and close, huddle in, vibrating comfortingly. Your own whirring is in there, can feel it shivering your rattlebox. You have one of those now. Neat. 

 

The Something is so close now, moving way too quickly for its own good, and the humming around you and in your own chest kicks up until it's loud. Too loud. Shoo! Go! Go away! Your back is tense and new lips pull back over new teeth. You're scared...

 

The first time you are airborn is a time you're not likely to forget either. 

 

_BAD WILL FALL HELP HELP ME SCARY FAST HIGH SMELLS UNKNOWN._ Something scratchy is wrapped around your sensitive neck, making you cringe as well as spit and mantle and thrash and bite like the desperate wriggler you are. You want _down_. You want _away_. You want that small, you-shaped space right between the others and away from this BadSmellBigThing. 

 

That was, ironically, probably the last time you actually got your wish. 

 

You are set down easily, right from where they took you, it seemed, and you scuttle back. Merging back into the puddle of warmth and soft grey skin and pokey horns. You show your new teeth once more for good measure, ducking your head and weaving your mantle about. That'll show them. 

 

It was probably the last time you ever stood up for yourself too. It's sort of bittersweet in rememberance. 

 

The colored yarn they'd tied around your tiny neck in a temporary collar itched. Still feels like it does, on the worst days...

 

 

It's hard to forget. 

 

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

 

You call her Lusus Whitehair Mom. Or just mom, that works too. 

 

Well... Ok, to be fair, she isn't actually. She doesn't...smell like your actual mom. You'd think you'd know that one a mile away, even from the ghost of it on your lusus's clothes when she comes, but she is who feeds you, and gives you lots of water that doesn't smell old and like spit, and makes sure everyone's pile (and themselves) is clean. Mom speaks to you in a tone that kind of matches yours...but she just can't get it right, really. Too high, or too low...and nothing being said. It's like if you screamed nonsense at the wall all day. She's never communicating anything.

 

But she's here and she brings interesting things sometimes. Things for you all to stalk and tackle and bite and charge at. New smells, new people sometimes. New words, too. You don't think they think you're listening, but you are. 

 

You have a name, and the lusus calls you by it. When you come to her when she calls, holding out a ripped cloth toy, all the white stuffing spilling out of it's gut and ask for a new one, she...stares at you. For a very long time. 

 

 

 

 

She never fixed, or replaced the toy, but you think, now, that's probably when you were marked for early sale. 

 

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

 

Your name is Tavros. 

 

They can never seem to remember that though. No matter how many times you tell them. Quietly, but insistent. You've learned all of theirs, why is it so hard for them to remember you? 

 

It's not like it's a large building. Well. House. And...you guess it's not actually really, uh, all that small, compared to others you've seen when the humans drag you out. It just...feels small. There's a lot of people around, all the time it seems, and your pile is never in the same place you left it. It smells like a lot of humans because of that; some you know, some you don't. You don't...like that. 

 

They're always around, too. It was kinda fun, at first. A whole big house full of male humans who were loud and always grinning and would cheer at the smallest thing you did. You could have just scratched an itch and they'd think it was amazing. They gave you clothes that weren't like the ones you had before. They were loose and baggy and you had a heck of a time getting them over your horns, but you managed, and it was only then that you noticed what was on the jersey's front. 

 

 

Green letters spelling out...something. One of them was shaped like a cow; a bull. With horns just like yours. 

 

"Let's hear it for USF!" the man who gave you the jersey calls, and you flinch so hard you nearly fall back on your rear when the collection of other male humans screams back, "USF USF! SOUTH FLORIDA! GO BULLS!" 

 

The large group cheers around you, and someone picks you up, so you can sit on their shoulders. They dance around like that, music starting to play somewhere, the smells of food and more people coming in. It's new. It's...overwhelming. 

 

 

 

It feels like being on top of the world. 

-

The feeling doesn't last long. 

 

The first couple weeks were... some of the most fast-paced, and, weird of your short life. You can't help but remember only half of the stuff that happened then. And all the things you learned - words and faces and smells and...things. Just so many. So many things. All the things, it felt like at the time. You added words like 'dorm' and 'classes' and 'essay' and 'fraternity' and 'sorority' and 'Greek' to your vocabulary. The last three seemed very important, so you made sure to commit them to memory. 

 

They seemed to like it when you learned words. They laughed when you'd repeat them, whatever they said. It was like a game.

 

They even gave you a nickname!

 

"Yeah, he can do tricks. Watch - hey, Bullshit, pass the remote," commented one of the humans who lived in the upper floor of the building. One of the others in the room grinned when you did so.

 

(It was not at the fact you did as you were told like a good troll. You know that now.) 

 

There were also...the rules. 

 

You were a good troll. You were a smart troll. You learn fast. 

 

You learn not to complain when the humans hang things off your horns. Socks that make you want to gag, their bags that pull you down to the ground when they suddenly drop their weight on the side of your head. It's a popular game to see who can most accurately throw the football over your head through your horns like a fieldgoal the most. They're all pretty good, so, they don't miss. Most of the time. 

 

You learn how to fix bloody noses on your own, but, sometimes the male humans' female mates will coo over you when it happens and playfully slap at their boys in retaliation on your behalf. 

 

Your pile moves, periodically. No matter what small corner you find for you own, where you think it will be out of the way but strategically placed, it will probably be totally gone the next day when you  come back to it. The pillows, sweaters, occasional playing card from one of the human's games. All of it except the vomit green dog bed they gave you at first. Like that should have been enough. And when you did construct your pile again, trying more and more to find the place where they wouldn't /move it/, they'd get angry at you for 'stealing their stuff.' Well....you, uh. Guess you were. It didn't belong to you, the materials. 

 

Nothing about you belonged to you. 

 

You learn, also, not to ask about food. You just trust that someone will remember (they don't, usually, never did) or that they'll be sober or not sleep-deprived enough to put two and two together when you sit conspicuously by the bin that holds the dry troll kibble with your bowl. The last time you got hungry enough to seek someone out for your meal - dared venture into the rooms upstairs - you walked in on something you didn't understand, and got a shoe thrown at you and a very angry naked female human screaming at you and the male human while you ran away. 

 

Apparently you'd interrupted something pretty important, because...the male human had been...pretty uh. Angry. The female had left, and. Your nose hurt a lot, and wouldn't stop bleeding after he taught you another very important rule of the house. 

 

Needless to say, it left you shaken, and had taken any want to ask anyone about addressing your needs and thrown it in a dumpster. 

 

You suspect the names he used for you weren't nicknames. 

 

Your name is Tavros, but, no one remembers to call you that. 

 

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

 

You get bigger.

 

The cute jersey stops being able to fit over your horns. They have to buy you special button-up shirts, or rip the fronts of regular ones. Your horns hurt sometimes, and you rub them on things to ease the incessant itch and pull at their bases. 

 

Ruining the walls a furniture will you people kicked out, they say. 

 

They start throwing things at you when it gets so bad and you find your head begin to lean over to rub on something. 

 

They don't like it when you won't give back that one pillow you're using to try to be comfortable under the coffee table in the tv room, which is the least loud room of the house for once. They ignore your soft-but-petulant "no", and continue pleading that their girlfriend wants it back because you'll 'start humping it or something'. What the uh, fuck ever. It's one of those memory foam pillows, and smells nice and lightly artificially floral, and _you're_ using it. Thanks. 

 

When he yanks it out from under your head without you expecting it, slamming one of your horns on the floor painfully, you

you remember what you do next. Uh. 

 

Nothing, um, happened, really. Not. Not to extent it probably could have. Your lips pull back, and you feel like there's a fire down your spine and in your face. Your scalp prickles and you can feel every hair standing to attention. It had only done that when you were scared before... 

 

Your limbs coil and piston underneath you, and the human's suddenly yelling as a well-placed charge to the shins with your wide, sweeping horns sent him back on his ass on the hard wood floor. He dropped the pillow at least. Victory! Your growl kicks up in pitch, not that humans can understand. 

 

The words he used then, and what the other people did, after. Uh. Everyone understood that plenty. Especially you. 

 

Metal link choke collars and backyards at night, all night, deserve a special place in hell. 

 

They certainly aren't easily forgettable.

 

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

 

You get bigger, and they've stopped smiling at you, for anything you do. 

 

Really, they uh, stop even making an effort to look at you. Kinda the opposite, actually. 

 

When you take it upon yourself to eat your food, in whatever quantities will fill you right then. When you experiment and find that the big fridges in the same room as your food are filled with things a million times better. And a million times more likely to get you into trouble. 

 

You never, ever growl or show teeth, or puff at anyone again for touching your pile. But. You don't move for them when they push at you, or yell at you either. Maybe if they throw things, or drag you off, but. Well. You're not saying that some of the piss in bottles around the trashcan is yours (and the disgust in the female's voices at the male humans when they find this) but, um. You're not saying it's. Not yours. 

 

You're aware it's not really a fair trade. It's rude, and ungrateful... 

 

But it

 

pushes. At a place in your chest and rattlebox and all up into your head like the hum of another troll (as if you'd ever heard on of those in the years after you left your clutchmates behind). But it's a pressure you find lately that you can't. Relive. All the things you payed no mind to. Or knew you weren't supposed to pay attention to. Either one. The names, the touching and rubbing their scent all over, you being something to play with at a whim. 

 

You don't know how to get rid of this feeling.

 

Eating...sometimes helps, when it comes in the form of hunger. When kibble tastes like gravel and the dust from the cracks in the floorboards, and you tell yourself you'll just snoop around in the kitchen for a few pieces of lunchmeat...a half-slice of the left over pizza...and a can of tuna no one cares about, with bread, and an apple maybe, and a protein shake someone hadn't touched since yesterday- 

 

It really doesn't get rid of the feeling, and you go to pile feeling kinda sickly full, and anxious, which makes you feel a little more sick, but maybe, focusing on the churning of your stomach keeps you from thinking about the tightness in your chest that has nothing to do with forbidden food and spitefully breaking house rules. 

 

And. And sometimes. 

 

Sometimes in the late at night, when the building is actually pretty calm, and most of the lights are off, and god, it's finally so quiet and you can push your pile where you like it and relax, dozily, into it's comfort... 

 

Your mind imagines that. That the one pillow pressing into your side isn't a thing of cloth and stuffing anymore. And that it's warmer (or cooler) then you, and. And maybe that the other pillow you have draped over your chest and belly, um. Isn't. A pillow either, you mean. It would breath slowly in your ear, and you could finally feel a bloodpusher thrumming away under a chest that isn't yours. Sorta hard to find harmonies, when your hum carries the melody all alone... 

 

You ignore as best you can the memory of how the ache in your chest becomes the void beside you.

 

(You, you need to hug. Someone, right now.) 

 

}{}{}{}{}{}{

 

They like to take you places. You don't remember all of them, but there are some that stick with you more then others. 

 

Not usually for nice reasons, but. It's something. 

 

(You find that there are lots of holes, where memories ought to be. That you know are...but you've locked them up tight and have lost the key.)

 

The female humans take you places, without telling the male humans, sometimes. When you were small, they'd cuddle you and stick you in their bags and take you out into the bright, hot sun that made you want to hide back home, so you make do with burrowing into the purse and chittering lowly. Oh, but there were always new smells, and people, and so many new sights it was impossible to stay hidden for long. 

 

The mall is an experience. It was...yep. One of those, definitely. The stores you most recall are ones that made your nose ache to be in too long, the strong, cloying scents of soaps and lotions and candles clogging everything until you'd be happy just to be back in your pile of socks and used pillows. Sometimes the female humans would coax you into peering out so they could chatter in delight about you to the person behind the counter, running weak, clawlike plastic nails roughly through your hair across the grain. "Adorable," they'd call you. "I didn't realize they came so small. Poor little thing. So shy. So cute. Just a little kitty, aren't you? Little lap darling."

 

These people were so strange.

 

There was more to the mall of course. Lots more. And more humans then you think had any right to coexist in one space, even if there was a lot of it.

 

(You've yet to figure it out; humans able to be around each other without knowing anyone from Adam, not knowing what their deal is, what their intentions are.) 

 

The food was....man. The food was not for you, but you hated the way the females would talk about it. As if it was a bad thing to be....eating. An enemy to be conquered - whoever starves the longest wins, apparently. It...turned your insides a little. Or, maybe that was your own hunger, knowing you'd have to wait until tonight for someone to remember your share. Either way, sitting there at their feet while chewing idly on a claw and trying to block out the tantalizing taste in the air of all the food around you was..

 

Mm. Bad. 

 

You weren't the only troll about, though. 

 

Occasionally, you'd look up and your eyes would meet others. Yellow as corn, squinting from the sun shining through the skylight, and following after humans dressed very well and occupied with more important things then the creature trotting dutifully. 

 

You'd look at them. They'd look at you. 

 

You never tried to speak to them. 

 

You had a feeling heir humans would think the same of that as lulus mom did when you tried it. And....and they probably wouldn't be as nice as lulus mom either.

 

You didn't like the mall very much. You feel lucky you aren't forced to remember much of it.

 

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

 

You're as big as you're probably ever going to get. 

 

You're an adult now. Well, very nearly, then. You know this like you know your own name, every idiosyncrasy in the dorm, and the name of every new human who comes through every year within the first week. 

 

On an average sized male human, you only come to maybe their shoulders, with your horns adding a couple inches that aren't really there. 

 

Everyone ignores you. 

 

Except when they can find some fun in poking at you. Those are really just the newbies though, and unless they're the dull, persistent kind that doesn't know when a hiss and and false charge right at them is a big red sign for GO AWAY, most lose interest in your novelty in a month. And go back to ignoring your existence. 

 

That's fine by you. Humans are so...invasive, anyways. Touching, petting, hedging around you while you're eating, digging through your pile while you aren't there and Disrupting things, ooh it makes your scalp prickle something fierce. 

 

Its getting harder to control that. 

 

When you were little - and god, doesn't that feel like a lifetime in the past - it was almost nice. It reminded you of your clutchmates, of lusus mom. Now it just...

 

It just feels like every time they lay a hand on you, they're leaving...something behind. A scent, a taste, themselves - _something_. 

 

And you. You hate it. 

 

You _hate_ it, it makes you want a bath, or your pile, or to chew off your own skin where they put their hands on you, someone to just....

 

Someone who gets it. Could curl up with you while you take the tangled snarl of all these feted feelings from inside of you and throw it at this non-existent 'someone's feet and let them make sense of it. Let them help you start to work out the knots, and pet you instead of the humans, and bite at your lip with teeth like yours, and feel velvety, slate skin brushing against one another, please, _god_...

 

Being a very-nearly adult hurts. So bad. 

 

You just can't figure out if it's your head or you bulge that makes it worse. 

 

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

 

You can't remember where they took you. 

 

You don't know this place. 

 

This is being dropped down a huge, gaping pit with no flashlight, and no 'good luck' on the way down. 

 

You lost the car. 

 

You lost your people. 

 

They sat you down on a park bench and said they'd be right back, but they aren't here, and it's getting dark, and it's so hot outside even if it's getting on towards nighttime. Fuck knows what the day time will be like. Florida was hot, but it was humid too. This hot is different. The pavement under your feet is still scorching from the sun, and it's been out of direct sunlight for a while. 

 

This is a different state, you know that. But it means precious little to you when you don't know _where your humans are_. 

 

You stay sitting on the park bench though. 

 

You're. You're a good troll. You know how to follow directions. 

(Please come back.) 

 

They won't be long. They trust you enough to have you out here all by yourself. 

(The trees are calling, you can hear it.) 

 

People pass, and they stare openly at you. You try not to stare back, but your stomach is roiling by now, so you can't help but flash teeth every now and then. 

 

You're so scared. 

(Wilding, you can feel it. You can feel the earth under your feet, took off our Collar and Leash, wilding and thrumming in your chest you know the world.) 

 

You leave the park bench when a van with letters painted in rainbow pulls up on the road nearby. There's a stylized silhouette of a human and a troll decalled on the exterior, an the men step out with metal poles with wire loops at the end, handcuffs, and a muzzle for flat, human-like faces. 

 

They see you run. They shout. You don't know why you're running. These humans help trolls find their people, a ghost of a memory for lusus mom drifts by as you scramble through shrubbery, around trashbins and through deserted playgrounds. If you are ever lost, find these humans. Show them your collar and leash. 

 

Your 

 

your collar and leash. 

 

You pause for a moment to get your hitching, insubstantial breath back, and clutch reflexively at your neck. 

 

You can feel the colored yarn. The metal choke collar. The black plastic-studded one with your tags on it that jangled every time you so much as twitched and drove you to no end of insane. 

 

Your neck feels so naked. 

 

Your shoulders feel so light. 

 

Your name is Tavros, and you don't need a collar to tell anyone that.

 

You leap into the unknown, and hear the troll welfare men's voices behind you again. You don't care. You'll never listen. You have yourself, now. You feel this new feeling, brave in bold reds and shiny buffed bronze spilling out from somewhere inside of you, and it's... It's almost magical. 

 

You could fly if you wanted to, you grin to yourself as you race down the paths of the dark park, leaving the welfare men well behind. You are flying, flying with your feet and the hot wind whipping cool around you horns like through clouds and eather in the sky...

 

You remember the car was blue. You remember wondering if, somehow, a little piece of the sky had fallen down into your fantasy

 

and your world was pain, and a darkness you couldn't see in. 

 

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

 

He found you in the mud under a bridge in that park - so he says. 

 

You honestly can't remember.

 

You remember yellow eyes shining dully out of the fog of crushing agony, and numbness. A halo of frizzy, ill-kept hair frames his face making it look dark, almost ink black in the low light. The horns arch out of his head, like two broken halves of a bow. He was mumbling something to himself.

 

"Miracle, you are, yeah..."

 

You thought you dreamed that. 

 

To be fair, you were thinking of a lot of things in that moment. Hours. Either-or, it couldn't have meant less to you. An hour felt like a moment and a moment felt like a day as he moved about you. You felt sick. Maybe your mouth opened to say something, but what came out was sluggish bile dribbling over your chin, and an aborted whine. 

 

Something, some part of the back of your brain is screaming louder then a caged monkey - screaming like a caged troll - about letting this stranger of your own kind so close when you're this injured _CARLIGHTSRUBBERPAINCRAWLCRAWLLAYDOWNDARKDIELEGHELPMEGOAWAY_ is a bad thing. 

 

  Yeah. Bad thing. 

 

But he had other plans. You think you pass out again as he moves to try and pick you up like you've seen humans do during weddings. You...think you don't mind that. Being awake isn't, uh, actually something you feel like you really want right then. 

 -

Something's not right with your leg... something that makes a chest vibrating under you kick up when a horrible, eeking wail shudder out past your stinging lips when he moves at all. The purr..

 

Fuck, you've never heard another purr since...

 

He's not warm. You're warm. Too...too warm. Sick...Hot, sticky with mud, sweat, vomit, probably blood because you can smell that too. There are high walls around you, trashcans, dumpsters, the gut-churning scent of human refuse. He's still moving. you're still fazing in and out of reality. 

 

When you...evidently get somewhere - a safe place? He's still purring for you - and moves to set you down, your fingers hook your claws into his shirt and your wail gets louder. It's the only parts of yourself you can move without feeling the fire of a thousand suns ignite and their gravity crush you. 

 

"Easy, little brother. Ain't be no bad happenings at the here and now....Shush..."

 

His words trail after each other, meandering in confusing syllables around each other, and you...fuck. 

 

Fuck, fucking...you want to think he's right, but he's still an unknown and your animal mind is demanding you do something, _anything_ to make sure he knows you're not going to lie down and die for him. 

 

You can't do much else though. 

 

You have to lie there as he sets you down, and leaves you in pain and terror as you can only slip into sticky tar-like unconsciousness with a strange highblood watching you, and cutting away the mangled remains of your leftside pants leg. 

 

You're glad you weren't awake to see it at it's freshest. 

 

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

 

His name is Gamzee, and he smells like trollmint. 

 

Like. All the time. 

 

Jesus, is it possible for someone to even function under the influence of that stuff on a pretty-much twenty four seven basis? Well. You suppose he's answered that a dozen times over now. 

 

Or shit, maybe that's just Gamzee's ability to be himself, and his brain's broken in that special way that allows for that. You certainly never got to experience trollmint that much, or in that dosage. But you think, you are exceptionally grateful the purpleblood seems to have a supply big enough for the both of you. To keep him from 'going all spooky up in the 'pan' as he says, and so you...well. 

 

So you can get through a few hours without the pain shocking your system to locking up and paralyzing everything. 

 

You don't ask how he did it, when he fixed it as best he could, or if he actually knew what he was doing. Or if he did anything to really help at all... But your leg is still attached. Doesn't work worth a damn, now. But it's there.

 

In a fit of fever, you'd told him to take you back home. 

 

He asked you were home was, and you said the dorm. Bulls, cryptid America, Everglades and hurricanes, you'd called it.

 

He said he couldn't manage that. 

 

You told him to take you to the welfare men. 

 

He said they'd cull you. Legs that got all busted like yours didn't heal easy. And you didn't have your humans with you. Or a collar to vouch for. They'd cull you for your own good.

 

You wish they would, you told him. 

 

You may have cried a little. Or a lot. Everything felt the same. All pain and numb fear and sickness. 

 

He doesn't say anything else. 

 

}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{

 

Sometimes you remember. 

 

Gamzee knows it's hard. It's hard, and...he knows there are things he'd never understand. 

 

He understands the streets, and how to read human expressions well. How to sniff out when chemicals have been thrown into the bottom of dumpsters to keep diggers like him out. How to pick locks, if he's sober enough. 

 

Comparatively, you still feel like you know so little. 

 

And now you have to rely on him for what feels like every little thing, some days. Out to piss behind the abandoned house, to bring you food and new material and items for your pile. Clothes and painkillers, if the weather turns bad. 

 

But 

 

Gamzee also knows what you like, and sometimes turns himself inside out to get them if he knows there's a chance he can. He'll play card games with you till the dawn, just because he likes watching your expression more then remembering not to show his hand. Will modify clothing for your horns, make an effort to look for hoodies with zippers, and button-ups. 

 

He'll tell you, on the best nights for both of you, that you laugh brighter then the Messiahs, who or whatever those may be to him. 

 

And you.

 

You hold him close when he can't get more trollmint for a few days because the lady he gets it from has gone on vacation and he's out. When his hands shake, and he paces, tossing his horns, and apologizing endlessly to you. You work on your steps. Your knee can't really bend and your ankle feels so weak, and your hip hasn't stop hurting, even two years after the fact. But you move, stretch, pace while he's gone. A dozen times around the room, you tell yourself. Four more if you're up to it. 

 

Gamzee trusts you to know your own limits, and never, ever asks more of you then you've already offered.

 

And you trust him to have confidence in you, and to still be yours when everything else fades to moonless black. 

 

Humans are forgetful. They forget everything eventually, even themselves. A little thing like a troll bought on passing whim and left out of recollection to die in pain and alone is but a phantom in their heads. 

 

You don't remember everything. That's impossible. But you remember what you need. 

 

 

You trust Gamzee to remember you, always. 


End file.
